Radiologists are not doctors reading images. They are physicians who perform and interpret tests (X-rays, ultrasound, CT scan, MRI, PET/CT) and intervene in the body (biopsies and other treatments) and help the treating physicians manage their patients better.

This is why teleradiology is so intellectually stultifying, because it commoditizes the radiologist and converts him/her into a "reading machine", taking away the "physician" part of being a radiologist.

This blog is all about those stories that make it gratifying being a radiologist.

And some thoughts about radiology.

If you have stories to share, feel free to email me on bhavin at jankharia dot com

I received a call about 4 months ago from a family physician, who wanted me to perform a USG or CT guided biopsy for a mass in the anterior compartment of the right thigh in a 47-years old woman. He did not give me any more details and said the patient would get in touch with me.

I forgot about this, until a month later, when I was going through some histopathology reports of biopsies done by my ultrasonologist and chanced upon a report that described a hemangiopericytoma in the thigh with a comment saying that this was consistent with a phospaturic mesenchymal tumor.

Fig. 1: Ultrasound shows the mass in the anterior compartment of the right thigh (red arrow) with the biopsy needle (blue arrow)

I called for more details and then realized that this was the same patient that the family physician, a month ago, had called about. Different people in our department do ultrasound and CT-guided biopsies and the patient went straight to the ultrasonologist, who in turn, went ahead and performed a core biopsy of the mass in the anterior compartment of the thigh (Fig. 1).

It had taken 5 years to get to this diagnosis. She started with an insufficiency fracture, five years ago, in the right 3rd metatarsal bone (Fig. 2), followed a month later by another fracture in the left 5th metatarsal bone (Fig. 3). She received symptomatic treatment and went from doctor to doctor with variable diagnoses of osteoporosis and perhaps osteomalacia.

This went on for 4 years, until one day, she was unable to get up from bed. She was admitted to a hospital and a skeletal survey showed fractures of the necks of both humeri (Fig. 5) and femurs (Fig. 6) with biconcave vertebrae (Fig. 7). Finally she received a diagnosis of osteomalacia and was worked up.

Her serum calcium was normal, vitamin D was normal, serum phosphorus was very low and her 24-hours urine phosphorus was elevated with a normal serum parathormone level and a raised serum alkaline phosphatase level. She did not fit into vitamin D related causes or phosphate deficiency conditions and what was left was a potential diagnosis of oncogenic osteomalacia.

Fig. 4: Radiographs of both shoulders show fractures (red arrows) of the necks of both humeri

Fig. 5: Radiograph of the bones of the pelvis and both hips show fractures (red arrows) of the necks of both femurs.

Fig. 6: Lateral radiograph of the spine shows biconcave vertebrae

Thus started the search for an FGF-secreting tumor that produces phosphaturia, hypophosphatemia and osteomalacia. A PET/CT then showed a mass with low FDG uptake in the anterior compartment of the thigh (Fig. 7), which was then biopsied. The common tumors that produce FGF are hemangiopericytoma, hemangioma, giant cell tumor and non-ossifying fibroma.

She was operated and the tumor removed. Most patients show dramatic recovery of their phosphorus levels, but the skeletal changes and fractures take time to heal. The patient is slowly getting better symptomatically.

The most common reason for delayed diagnosis (in her case 5 years with an average time of 4.7 years from start of symptoms to final diagnosis) is due to lack of awareness and the inability to find the tumor.

This case was recently presented by our DNB resident Dr. Parang Sanghavi in the Teaching Files Case Presentation meeting in Mumbai, where it won the first prize in the 3rd year residents’ category.